A Forsyth chef is making waves in the food world after winning the cooking competition show Chopped.
Chelsia Ogletree, who owns Her Majesty Kitchen in downtown Forsyth, appeared on the show’s most recent episode, which aired Tuesday night.
Family, friends, local leaders and media gathered with Ogletree at her downtown eatery to see the win for themselves and celebrate. Guests sampled a spread of Ogletree’s signature dishes and cocktails as jaunty Mardi Gras marches — an homage to her hometown of New Orleans — played throughout the restaurant.
“At the end of the day, this has been such a rewarding experience because I don’t see it as a win for me, it’s a win for all of us,” Ogletree said. “Because who am I but a servant?”
Chopped invites four chefs from around the U.S. to compete against each other in three rounds. Each round, contestants are given a basket of seemingly random ingredients and must prepare a dish within a time constraint to be judged by a panel of celebrity chefs. The challenges follow the sequence of a multi-course dinner — appetizer, entree and dessert.
Ogletree, who kept a cool head and confident demeanor despite of the high-pressure kitchen around her, said she was well-prepared for the show after running Her Majesty Kitchen, which opened in May 2024.
“At Her Majesty, we are on a time crunch every day,” Ogletree said.
For the appetizer round, contestants were given corn on the cob, red bell peppers, mussels and blue rock candy. Ogletree immediately got to work preparing a plate of steamed New Orleans-style mussels with blackened corn ribs and rock candy crostinis. The judges praised Ogletree’s well-cooked mussels and deep flavors, and she breezed onto the second round.
“I went straight to New Orleans in the first round,” Ogletree said. “We do mussels at the restaurant, and then the corn on the cob brought me back to my local farmers who bring me corn.”
For the entree portion of the competition, contestants were given skirt steak, kale, cake pops and whipped coffee.
Ogletree sought inspiration from her childhood and made a version of Yakamein, a noodle soup popular among the New Orleans Vietnamese community that Ogletree’s stepdad cooked often when she was growing up.
“I kept hearing the producers say, ‘Don’t make a soup,’” Ogletree said. “But my brain said, ‘You gotta make yakamein.’” The dish was a standout, with its rich beef broth made from the coffee and cake pops pairing nicely with the tenderly cooked skirt steak.
Ogletree served samples of the dish to watch party attendees, who quickly slurped up its deep flavors.
During the final challenge, Ogletree faced off against Zach Laidlaw, a chef and farmer from Maui, Hawaii. Ogletree and Laidlaw were given sour grapes, chocolate gold coins, a gummy snake and deviled eggs to create a desert and secure the win.
Ogletree said internally she had no idea what to do but she persevered and made the best of what she had. She prepared a plate of beignets stuffed with a deviled egg yolk filling, chocolate pralines and a sour sauce made from the grapes and gummy snake.
“My grandmother taught me that you make something the best of it,” Ogletree said. “When life gives you lemons you make lemonade, and that’s what I did in this episode. I made it work, I made it the best it could possibly be.”
As the judges announced Ogletree as the winner, the restaurant erupted into cheers. Ogletree received $10,000 from the show for her win. Ogletree credited her win to the tried and true lessons she learned in her grandmother’s kitchen, and the daily grind of problem solving in a restaurant.
“What you saw on this episode was me just adapting to what I know to do,” Ogletree said. “Going back to my roots, doing what I know to do best.”
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with The Telegraph.
